At the start of this year, juniors Silvana Schmidt and Kim Pols founded the Female Authors and Feminist Themes Club to engage students with feminist literature.
“My co-founder and I were discussing some of the female authors we were reading and noticed that feminist literature wasn’t highlighted enough in our classes,” said Schmidt.
Pols said, “We meet once every two weeks, and we share our thoughts on discussion questions about our ‘book of the month.’ People give suggestions, and then future books are voted on by the members.” At their latest meeting, the co-founders led a presentation on their current read, Mothering by Ainslie Hogarth.
Freshman Emma Magdalin said, “I wanted to get more into reading, and I needed recommendations and a group to talk with. These books are definitely out of my comfort zone, but the club has expanded my reading knowledge.”
Instead of setting page counts for members to read each week, the club allows students to decide how far into the book they want to read and sets up meetings in the middle of the month where students can pop in to discuss their thoughts on the book.
Aside from Mothering, members’ favorite reads from this year include Bunny by Mona Awad and Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors, both works of contemporary feminist literature. Schmidt said, “Many of these books show a realistic depiction of society and how it treats women all from an inside perspective.”
In addition to the engaging novels, secretary and junior Morgan Baudler shared, “My favorite part of this club is that it has a very chill environment that inspires me to read more books.”
Flip through the pages of female literature on Wednesdays in G-8 and follow the club on Instagram at @mawomeninlit.
